“Let’s go, leave it!” Baron screamed at a Militia soldier who was fumbling with a bag of rations while drones unloaded ordinance all around them. They had been bracketed by BDF forward observers and were now at the mercy of accurate drone fire. Baron, Mouse, and Rose were delaying the BDF advance while the Militia fell back into the city which the drones had so far left intact. The three of them were able to delay individual areas but the entire span of the city being pushed by the BDF encompassed at least a mile of rocky terrain. The BDF may have been inexperienced with open combat but the discipline mixed with coordination allowed them to morph around the hardpoints within the defense and surrounded the pockets of militia resistance.

A BDF drone skimmed the surface and shook Baron as he stabilized his rifle for another shot at a BDF soldier leaning over a rock firing at someone else. He fired and didn’t bother to follow through if he missed he didn’t have time for another, they needed to move.

“Mouse have you made it to the city?” Baron barked into his helmet’s microphone. He noticed his voice was broken and choppy as his heavy breathing tried to interrupt him. The fight had been going on for several hours and if he was getting tired he knew the militia would be fatigued.

“We’re here, maybe a quarter of the guys we expected made it. Fall back and we’ll be ready to cover you.” Mouse replied through winded breaths that matched Barons.

“Rose, let’s go!” Baron yelled over his microphone as Rose was only a few yards away. His heavy repeater was cutting down entire swaths of trees as any BDF unlucky enough to be in his sector of fire dove for cover.

“Moving!” Rose yelled back as he pulled his heavy cannon towards his chest and sprinted back towards the city. Baron attempted to cover his sector of fire and Rose’s but his single-shot rifle could only keep so many heads down and the BDF pushed at them. A thunder irrupted in the tree’s and he saw the beam a second before being thrown into the dirt behind him. Baron felt a burning heat in his left shoulder as he pushed himself out of the dirt.

“Boss!” Baron could hear Rose’s voice behind him.

“I’m fine, keep moving!” Baron screamed as he snatched his rifle from the mud and let his left arm droop down, useless.

Baron and Rose sprinted back to the city, they expected to see other pockets of Militia along the way but only found craters. The drones had decimated the rear defensive line they had expected to fall back to before moving into the city. This made it impossible for everyone to get back without running a gauntlet of fire. Baron leaped over a crater filled with dirty water and bodies but lost his balance on the other side tumbling into the dirt again. He crawled to his feet before hearing another thunderous boom behind him again. He was being hunted by a sniper, a good one. The shot missed but Baron knew it was close, the sniper could see him.

Keep running. Baron repeated in his mind.

“Come on old man!” Rose screamed as he turned around to cover Baron, laying down a quick burst of inaccurate fire.

“I’m not Moses!” Baron smiled as he embraced the pain. The pain was bad but the adrenaline pumping into him made the experience exhilarating. The sniper continued to hammer the dirt around Baron and Rose as they finally made it into the city. Machine guns mounted in windows throughout the city kept the BDF at bay and allowed the Venators time to breathe.

“Any word from Boot or Moses?” Baron asked while spraying foam over his shoulder to seal the wound.

“Negative, a few guys from Moses team made it back but don’t know where he was. Nothing from Rook, the entire North was overrun first.” Mouse was tossing ammo cans up to the second floor of the building they were in. A soldier above was catching them before adding it to the pile for the machine guns to pool from. Everyone in the building looked grim as the realization sank in that they were being surrounded. The BDF wasn’t pushing into the city but enveloping it. Sporadic gunfire echoed through the streets as the BDF tested the lines with light skirmishers but didn’t commit to a push yet.

“Orders sir?” Rose asked while cleaning the mud from his cannon.

Baron needed his team at full strength, he wanted to search for Moses and Rook but knew he’d be abandoning the Militia. Before Baron could answer Rose the radio in his helmet chirped.

“Peak Central to Harasser one.” Baron recognized Mcbride's voice.

“This is Harasser one, send it?”

“I’m hearing a fraction of our guys made it to the city but the BDF is holding?”

“That’s affirmative.”

“You know my next question then...” McBride’s voice was slow and translated the sobering decision Baron would need to make. Did he tell McBride the reality was they would be overrun the moment the BDF committed to a push and to evacuate the shelters, dooming the civilians to an unforgiving rock? Baron sat down on an empty metal canister and leaned against the wall before sighing deeply. He was always tired, he couldn't remember a time when he wasn't making a decision that could result in someone's death. He wanted to tell everyone he didn't know but that wouldn't help the situation. As Moses said, left, right, forward, or back, just tell us what to do.

“They’re your people McBride. I can’t tell you we’ll win this, only that my men will do whatever we can. What comes next, either way is going to be bloody.” Baron's blood was dripping from his armor where it had accumulated before he sealed the gap, it pooled on the floor under him as everyone in the room watched. The Militia saw the Venators as humans now, they could bleed, they could lose, this wasn't going to have a happy ending and they knew it.

As Mcbride started to answer he was cut off by Rose who ran to a window.

"Shit!" Rose exclaimed as everyone else went to see what the problem was.

"It's Moses!" Roses added before jumping out of the window that had long since been void of any glass. Baron followed shortly behind him after telling the rest of the Militia and Mouse to hold position.

Moses was a few hundred yards away with several other Militia that were getting hammered by red hot beams of light from the encroaching BDF.

"Stay back!" Moses screamed as he leaned against a line of crates with dirt piled on the other side of them and faced Baron and Rose. He held up his hand and gestured for them to get down but it was too late. Baron knew what it was...

"What the hell old man!?" Rose yelled as he neared Moses. His voice showing his enthusiasm for finding Moses.

BOOM

Baron was right behind Rose when he heard it. He knew it was coming but he remembered too late. Rose was thrown to the dirt at Baron's feet.

"ROSE!" Baron heard Mouse screaming behind him.

"Stay back!" Baron screamed into the radio as he grabbed Rose and pulled him towards a pile of concrete rubble pushed against the side of a collapsed diner. He pulled the large Venator with both arms and felt the wound in his shoulder open back up from the stress. Blood was pooling under his inner suit, too much blood.

"Rose?" Baron knelt beside the lifeless suit of armor before opening his wrist computer. He plugged it into Roses' suit and tapped a few buttons with clumsy fingers. A hole had been punched in Roses's chest, a perfect circle the size of a dime. 90-degree angle meant the sniper had been perfectly lined up for Baron and Rose, he had his pick and chose Rose. Baron had seen his friends die before, they were clones after all but this was different. They wouldn't be able to spin Rose back up in a new body, they didn't have the Venator labs to make them immortal anymore, this was it.

Mud and blood was smeared over Baron's computer and he struggled to see through it. The display was silent with no brain activity or heartbeat. Baron sprayed foam in Roses's chest despite no blood coming out, he didn't know what else to do. No medivac was coming for them, no surgeon would be waiting at the Bastion to help him even if there was a chance.

"How is he?" Baron had to answer Mouse who had been desperately pleading with Baron this entire time over the radio. Baron looked over at Moses who was still pushed back against the line of crates just a few yards from where Baron was hiding. Moses caught Baron's stare and dropped his head down, slumping in the dirt.

"He's gone."